Recall Unreality
by Runt Thunderbelch
Summary: "Total Recall" sequel: Douglas Quaid's trip to Mars was just a dream.  Now, he's awake, and the red planet again beckons him.
1. The Dream Undone

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Total Recall, at least, not in this reality.

Recall Unreality

By

Runt Thunderbelch

Chapter 1: The Dream Undone

A wisp of _Scheherazade_ perfume brought Douglas Quaid back to reality. His eyelid fluttered open. He was lying in a hospital bed in the middle of an English garden. Birdsong twittered. In a nearby chair sat the most beautiful woman in the world.

"Lori?"

She dropped the book she'd been reading. "Doug? Doug!" She flung herself across the short gap between them, taking his hand with those icy hands of hers, bathing his face in frenzied kisses. "You've come back to me! You've come back! They said you couldn't, but I never lost faith. Never!"

"Lori, I don't understand. You're dead."

"What? Dead? Me? No, I'm fine. Doug, you've been trapped in a nightmare. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. You've come back." She picked up the patient wand on the bedstead and rang for the nurse.

"Harry? How's Harry? Is Harry okay?"

"Harry? Harry who? Harry from work? Why, he's fine."

"I killed him too. He was trying to kill me, but I killed him first. And I killed you." He remembered the ugly bullet entry wound in the center of her forehead.

"You haven't killed anyone, darling. You've been right here."

An unseen door in the middle of a hedge opened, and a nurse gaped. "Doctor!" she shouted down the hallway she was standing in. "Doctor, Douglas Quaid is awake!"

"Where's here?"

"You're in a hospital, darling. They brought you here from Recall. You remember Recall?"

"Oh yes. There were going to send me on a trip to Mars. And I really went!"

"No, Doug. You had a schizoid embolism. They treated you at their facilities there, but when they couldn't bring you back, you were transferred here for long-term care."

Quaid blinked trying to make sense of it all. "This is impossible."

A doctor hurried into the room. "It most literally is."

Quaid recognized the tall, bald, chubby man. "And I killed him. I shot him in the side of the head."

"I remember that too," said Dr. Edgemar. I was implanted to try and talk you out of you delusion, and you shot me."

"Are you okay?"

"I was a psychological implant. You couldn't hurt me."

"Then why were you sweating?"

"What?"

"You were sweating. You were scared. Why were you scared if there was nothing to be scared about?"

"You shot me because my psycho-avatar was sweating? Well, if that doesn't take the cake!" The doctor chuckled, which faded when he thought of something. "Mr. Quaid, there is something you need to know. I was your last chance of escaping that delusion. When you killed me, you rejected any chance at reality and plunged yourself ever deeper into your paranoia. Well, according to medical science, there was no longer any hope for a recovery. According to everything we know about this kind of thing, you cannot be conscious now; you cannot be lucid; you cannot be talking to us. What we are seeing here today is impossible."

"It's a miracle," sighed Lori.

The doctor nodded. "Yes, perhaps that's a better word."

Quaid was slowly shaking his head. "So there's no blue skies on Mars? No end to the revolution? No Melina?"

Lori's eyes hardened. "Melina? Who's Melina?"

"Um, nobody."

"'Nobody'? Her again? The girl from your dreams?"

"Why are you angry? She was part of my nightmare. I left her behind. I did the impossible to come back to you."

Those words had the desired effect. The fury in his wife's eyes faded, and she melted her body against his.

But no Melina? She couldn't have been imaginary. He'd dreamed of her long before he ever went to Recall. She had to be real.

The hospital wanted to keep him 24 hours for observation. This made Lori happy because she could now go grocery shopping for his favorite foods, clean the apartment and get ready for his "homecoming."

Quaid didn't want any damn homecoming. He just wanted to go home, have a sausage pizza, some cold beer and, if he was lucky, watch a game of fireball on the holo. But apparently, he was the only one who didn't get a vote in this matter.

Once he was alone, Quaid switched the room from English garden over to Austrian Alps. This had been his favorite setting ever since the day he'd realized it was patterned on terrain just a few clicks away from his childhood home.

In the late afternoon, Quaid switched the room again, this time to tropical beach. He watched the sun go down amidst a dazzling chloroscopic maelstrom of oranges, pinks, reds, and yellows. Then the stars came out, so brilliant and close, he'd have sworn he could reach out and touch them.

His eyes sought out one in particular. A red one, burning brightly, silently beckoning him. In his memory, he could hear his own voice saying over and over again, "Get your ass to Mars. Get your ass to Mars. Get your ass to Mars."


	2. The Dream Pursued

Chapter 2: The Dream Pursued

"How long will you be staying here on Mars, Mr. Brubaker?"

Quaid watched the customs clerk examine the forged I.D. card and forcibly calmed his breathing. "Two weeks."

"Bringing in any fruits or vegetables?"

Overcoming the self-destructive urge to again say _two weeks_, Quaid replied. "No. Nothing to declare."

The clerk nodded, ran the I.D. through a read/re-write device and handed it back. "Enjoy you stay here on Mars, Mr. Brubaker."

"Thank you."

Quaid left customs and caught a cab to the Mars Hilton. He gave his Brubaker I.D. to the deck clerk, who fed it into the verifier.

"Would you like the same suite?"

"Oh definitely."

The clerk finished the check in and then commented, "It seems you left something in our safe."

"Would you get it for me please?"

The clerk put his own thumb on a biometric verification unit and waited. Quaid's on thumbprint brought a happy beep. The lockbox emerged from the counter behind the clerk.

Quaid knew even before he opened the lockbox that it would contain a single page of folded paper. He knew it would be a hand-drawn flyer for a sex bar called "The Last Resort." There would be a men's-room-style drawing of a naked woman on one side and on the back, a hand-written scrawl in his own handwriting saying: "For a good time call Melina." He unfolded the page to find he was correct.

Okay, if he'd never before been to Mars, and if his Recall trip had just been a dream created from his own subconscious, then how had he correctly guessed the contents of this lockbox?

He couldn't have.

This could mean only one thing. He was not Quaid. He was Hauser. Cohaagen had wiped Hauser's memory, dumped him on Earth with a fake wife and a brainful of false memories as part of an elaborate plot to find Kuato, the psychic mutant behind the rebellion. And so here Quaid was back on Mars, following along the planned path in a way that would make Spinoza himself climb out of his ancient grave and applaud Quaid's lack of free will.

He turned away from the desk and gazed hopelessly out the window. He realized that he was looking at the pinkish-red sky of Mars. That sky should be blue.


	3. Bad Dream

Chapter 3: Bad Dream

Lori's commlink beeped. "Hello?"

Cohaagen's angry face appeared. "Where the hell are you?"

Her mouth went dry. How to explain this? Maybe with some of the truth. "I'm on a suborbital flight, Los Angeles to Christchurch."

"Why the hell are you going to New Zealand?"

_Shit_, she thought. _Dammit all, he's going to find out sooner or later anyway._ "Doug," she admitted. "He's run off. We've tracked his debit card to a hotel in Christchurch."

"You think so?" sneered Cohaagen. "I'll bet you a million credits there was no biometric confirmation, was there? It may interest you to know that just five minutes ago, he checked into the Mars Hilton using the name of Brubaker. His thumb print verifies that it's really him."

"Impossible!" blurted Richter shoving his face in front of Lori's camera. "I still have the Brubaker I.D. card."

"Then maybe my top secret agent knows how to forge one."

"He's no longer your top agent," snapped Richter. "Those memories have been wiped clean. Now he's merely Douglas Quaid, construction worker."

"You imbecile! He's in Total Recall. He remembers everything!"

"Has he contacted you yet?"

"No."

"Then it's not _Total_ Recall. As soon as that happens, he'll check in. Right now, he's just dealing with bits and pieces of his memories. He remembers the Mars Hilton and his Brubaker cover, but not you, and probably not most things."

"Or," growled Cohaagen, "we have a nightmare scenario: He remembers everything and wants to defect to Kuato."

"Damnation," hissed Lori. "What do you want me to do?"

"Get your sweet ass to Mars. I'll need you to bring Hauser back under control."

"Can I bring Richter with me?"

"Bring whomever you damn well want! Just get here, and get here fast!"


	4. Dream of a Better Tomorrow

Chapter 4: Dream of a Better Tomorrow

As Quaid came out of the Hilton, a coffee-colored cabbie with horrible teeth bounced up beside him. "Hey man, you need a cab?"

"Hi Benny, how are your five kids?"

Benny's grinned widened to show even more bad teeth. "Hungry, man. They're always hungry."

Another cabbie came running up. "Hey, that's my fair!"

"Relax," Quaid told him. "I always use Benny whenever I'm on Mars."

These words seem to placate the second cabbie, but Benny looked confused. "Do I usually pick you up here?"

"Naw, we met at Cohaagen's mansion. Don't you remember?"

"Oh yeah!" Benny lied. "You goin' there now?" He opened his cab door for Quaid, who got in.

"No, Venusville, to a bar called 'The Last Resort'. You know it? Of course you know it. You've taken me there before."

Benny bounded into the driver's seat. "Yeah, but I know an even nicer place now." He started the cab. "The girls are prettier and cleaner. And they don't water their drinks."  
>"And you get a fat kickback. No, take me to the Last Resort. Someone's waiting for me there."<p>

"Whatever you say, man."

Venusville stunk of cheap perfume, sour beer, unwashed armpits, and putrid barf. Large, wobbly fans attempted to circulate semi-recycled air. The street and sidewalks were populated by twisted and deformed humans.

As the cab rolled to a stop, Quaid could see in neon lights: "The Last Resort." He paid Benny, including a large tip, and made his way towards the door.

Benny goggled at the amount of money he'd just been handed. "I'll be right here when you get back, man. Take your time!"

A little girl with the face of a monster ran up to Quaid. "Guess your sign?"  
>He took out a 1-credit coin. "Sure, go ahead."<p>

"You're a Taurus, right?"

Quaid handed her the coin and patted her head. "Perfect."

The girl's equally monstrous mother was grinning at him. "Tell your fortune?" Many mutants prided themselves on their paranormal abilities.

"Let me tell you yours instead. Cohaagen will turn off the air, and you and your daughter will nearly die. But in the nick of time, Mount Pyramid will erupt, but instead of spewing out lava, it will erupt air. The pressure will burst the dome, fresh air will come rushing in, and everyone will be saved. When you look outside, the sky of Mars will have turned blue."

She smiled sadly. "Some fortune teller you are. That'll never happen."

He smiled back. "Some fortune teller you are. Give me twenty-four hours." Quaid left the mother and daughter behind and strode through the door of The Last Resort.


	5. Dream Girl

Chapter 5: Dream Girl

Melina was sitting at the usual table on the far side of the room along with George, Tony and some others he didn't recognize. The throb of music filled the crowded bar. He started towards her.

As Quaid passed by the bartender and a covey of quim, the bartender noticed where he was headed and barked a warning. Melina turned around and was shocked to see him. She glanced over to George, who nodded, and so she got up and met him.

"Hello Hauser," she purred as she ran an appreciative hand up and down his bicep. "Still bulging I see." She grabbed his manhood. "What have you been feeding this thing?"

He shrugged. "Blonds," he told the brunette.

"I think it's still hungry." She herded him towards the steps that led up to the private rooms.

A hand grabbed Quaid and spun him around. He was looking into Tony's fleshy mug. "You've got a lot of nerve showing your face around here, Hauser."

Quaid had to chuckle. "Look at who's talking."

"Hey Tony," said George pulling his mutant friend away. "Give the big guy a break."

"Relax," put in Quaid. "You'll live longer." He headed up the steps after Melina while George guided Tony back to their table.

Melina led him along metallic catwalk and, when they passed the smallest whore on Mars, she said, "Take care of Tony for me, will you?"

"No problem," chirped the tiny blond. "If you need any help with this one, give me a holler."

Melina led him into her cubical. Quaid slid the Wooten grating closed and activated it. Suddenly, they were surrounded by a Roman orgy. Quaid quickly changed the wall setting to Austrian Alps. When he turned back to her, he received a vicious slap.

"You son of a bitch! You're alive? I thought that Cohaagen had tortured you to death."

Quaid remembered the rambling explanation he'd told her in his dream and the suffocating desperation that he'd been feeling. That wouldn't do. If he wanted her cooperation, he had to play Alpha Dog.

"Listen," he snapped. "Cohaagen grabbed me, yes. He slapped a memory cap on me and dumped me on Earth. But I've broken it, and so I'm back. This is all part of an elaborate ruse to let Cohaagen find Kuato and kill him. One more thing, there's a cabbie just outside with a loud mouth and bad teeth. His name is Benny. If pushed, he'll show you he's a mutant. But don't be fooled. He's a traitor who's secretly working for Cohaagen."

"Benny works for Cohaagen?"

"Yes!"

"Hauser, you've lost your mind."

"Melina, I need your help to get inside the Pyramid Mines. I know what Cohaagen's secret is. The alien reactor makes air. We need to turn it on!"

"Wait! Wait! No one knows what that fuckin' reactor does. If we turn it on, we could just as easily blow up the planet."

"You don't understand! I know! I know! Kuato helped me remember. The reactor makes air!"

"When did you talk to Kuato?"

Quaid stopped dead. He had mind melded with Kuato in his dream, but he could never tell her that. Where did his dream-Kuato get this information? Was it from a memory of Hauser's, or did Quaid's subconscious just make it up? Damn, he needed to know!

"You didn't talk to him, did you?" she snarled. "You're lying, aren't you? They told me not to trust you, but damn my soul to Hell, I did. And you're still working for Cohaagen!"  
>"No, Melina! There're a lot of crazy things going on, but one thing you can be sure of, I'm no longer with Cohaagen. I'm with the rebels. I'm on your side!"<p>

"Get out."

"Melina, let me explain!"

She whipped out her protection pistol and pointed at him. "Leave now, or so help me, I will kill you."

He stared down the hole of the barrel for the longest time. Then he snatched the gun away. "Okay, I'll go." He stuffed the pistol under his belt. "If you don't mind, I'll keep this. I'd been needed it more than you."


	6. ReDreaming

Chapter 6: Re-Dreaming

Douglas Quaid sat in his room in the Mars Hilton and tried to figure out just what the hell was going on.

Yes, he'd dreamed this all before when he'd suffered that schizoid embolism back at Recall. In that dream state, his subconscious had been able to penetrate his memory cap and thus had been able to access old memories and to weave them into his dream. But there had been gaps, things that Hauser never knew, and so his subconscious had resorted to wild guesswork. So here today, reality was not exactly as he remembered.

Still, he had to somehow get through to Melina and the others that Cohaagen was on to them, that they were in terrible danger, and that Kuato was being targeted. He had to get into the Pyramid Mines, to get to the alien control center, and to activate their planetary reactor. He needed to make air.

Someone knocked.

Quaid had the pistol in his hand and was moving towards the door. "Who is it?"

"Mr. Quaid? Do you remember my voice?"

Yes, he knew that gravelly, whiny voice. Quaid threw the door open and pointed his pistol at a tall, bald, chubby man. "Dr. Edgemar, so nice to see you. It's déjà vu all over again."

"Precisely," replied Dr. Edgemar. "May I come in?"

Quaid's free hand moved the doctor aside so he could spot Lori just around the corner. "Of course, both of you come in. I insist." He backed into the room, keeping the pistol on his visitors.

"This is indeed déjà vu, Mr. Quaid. I'm sorry to have to tell you that you've relapsed. Your paranoid delusion has returned, and you are lost in what we call a degeneration loop. The nightmare which you are now suffering through will only get worse. There is no way you can cure yourself. Mrs. Quaid and I have been implanted in an attempt to get bring you back."

"Unless I shoot you first."

"That is more correct than you know. After you shot me before, you only regained your sanity because of a miracle. I assure you, God doesn't hand out more than one miracle per customer. If you shoot me a second time, you'll be insane for the rest of your life, but not in a nice room like this. Because of the degeneration loop, your dreams will become more and more nightmarish. The rest of your life will be one of ever increasing horror."

The pistol in Quaid's hand twitched.

Lori said, "Think about this, darling. If this were reality, how could we ever have found you here on Mars? We'd be back on Earth on some wild goose chase, following the false clues you'd left us. The last place where we'd be is knocking on your door on Mars. You aren't on Mars, darling; you're at Recall. We're trying to save you. Help us help you."

Quaid thought about this. "If this is a dream, and you are both real, then how do you know of the false clues I left in my dream?" He brought the pistol up, pointed it at Dr. Edgemar's face and pulled the trigger. The back of the chubby man's skull exploded, with blood and brains spraying out all over the wall.

Then he turned the gun on Lori.

Before he could pull the trigger a second time, she kicked him hard in the balls.


	7. Dream Demon

Chapter 7: Dream Demon

His gun went flying someplace; he didn't know where. Doubled over in agony, Quaid desperately shoved a shoulder at Lori, but she sidestepped and kicked him in the face.

Then she came after him with high kicks lashing out for his head (damn her dance classes). Quaid back peddled across the room and slammed into the wall. He managed to block her next kick, knocking her foot away, but she used the momentum to spin all the way around and land a two-handed blow to the side of his head. When her two hands came back the other way, he ducked under them, lifted her up and flung her across the room.

With a squeal, Lori landed on the bed and rolled across it to come back up on her feet, pulling a dagger from out of an ankle sheath as she did so. He didn't see in at first, and so came rushing towards her, only to jump back as the knife slashed and slashed again. She shifted the dagger to the other hand, jabbing furiously at him. She was as berserk as any Fury out of Greek mythology or as Lilith, the dream demon from the Talmud. When one of Lori's vicious thrusts came too far, he grabbed her wrist, dragged her past him, and threw his other arm around her throat. He shook her wrist until the knife flew free.

Her foot came down hard on his instep. When he winced, she struggled free and dove for the gun on the floor. He leaped for it too, coming down hard on top of her.

"Help me!" She screamed. "Help me!"

A wall of the room exploded.

Quaid got the pistol away from Lori, and scrambled to his feet, swinging the gun around to meet the men rushing in through the hole.

The first one in slapped his gun aside, but Quaid ducked down, drove his shoulder into the man's thighs, and upended him.

The next one grabbed Quaid's wrist and clawed for the gun.

Quaid's other wrist was grabbed by the third man, who spread eagled him.

The fourth man charged, but Quaid got a foot up, caught the man's belly, and shoved him away.

The second man loosened Quaid's gun but lost his grip on Quaid's wrist. So Quaid punched him hard and then reached across and punched the man holding his other wrist.

The fourth man came charging back. Quaid blocked his punch and decked him. Suddenly, the second man was there too. Quaid ducked, got his arm around the back of the man's knee, and stood up, sending the man over backwards.

Someone hit Quaid from behind, and then the thugs came swarming in all over him, driving him to the floor. Quaid struggled back up to his hands and knees when Lori kicked him in the face. The kick twisted him over, and with the fireworks went off in his head half blinding him, the thugs grabbed his wrists and began pulling him back up from the floor.

Perhaps it was a dream, but the door to the hotel room opened and in strolled Melina with an assault rifle. When she started firing, the men dropped Quaid, which just made them clearer targets for Melina's bullets.

Bodies were dropping everywhere.

Lori dove at Melina from the side and knocked the assault rifle flying. Then she kicked Melina in the face. Melina grabbed her lapels and did a backwards somersault, hurling Lori across the room.

Quaid wanted to help, but his bones were like water.

Lori bounced off a wall and came back fast after Melina, who block her punch and spun around to land a hard kick in Lori's belly. Lori doubled over and Melina straightened her with an uppercut. Then she punched Lori in the face and swung again. The second time, Lori got inside the punch and elbowed Melina in the kidney. When Melina stiffened in pain, Lori got her elbow inside Melina's and flipped her. Melina staggered back up to her feet, and Lori punched her in the face, and then punched her again before she could recover, and then again.

Melina went down, trying to stay conscious, trying to clamber back up again.

Quaid was on his feet now, struggling across the room. He slammed into Lori from behind, carrying her down to the floor with him as he fell. She pushed his semi-conscious body aside and struggled up just in time to be kicked in the face by Melina.

Lori fell heavily and didn't move.

Melina bent over and gathered up Quaid and her assault rifle. As Quaid rose, he got his hand on the pistol and tucked it into his belt.

"Let's get out of here," urged Melina.

"Good idea," agreed Quaid.

They staggered across the room and out the door. Each step was painful as they made their way along the corridor and went down the elevator. When the doors opened, they moved quickly across the lobby and went outside.

Benny was waiting for them. Their bloody and bruised faced popped his eyes open. "Whoa!" he gasped. "You guys look like you could sure use a cab."


	8. Shattered Dreams

Chapter 8: Shattered Dreams

Quaid whipped out the pistol and pointed it between Benny's eyes. "I know you're a traitor who Cohaagen hired to kill Kuato. So why shouldn't I ventilate your skull right now?"

Melina gently pushed the pistol aside. "Stop acting like an idiot and get in the cab."

"He's an assassin!" insisted Quaid.

She opened the cab door and shoveled him inside while Benny hurried around the cab to climb into the driver's seat. "You folks want the nearest hospital?" He started up and steered around one of the big, subterranean tunnelers, with its multi-faced blades spinning uselessly in the thin air.

Melina shook her head. "Venusville."

Quaid couldn't believe Melina was so blasé about this. "We can't let him report back!"

"Man, you're talking crazy! You hit your head or what?"

Melina asked, "Why in the world do you think Benny's out to kill Kuato?"

That stopped Quaid cold. He couldn't very well say, _I saw it in a dream._ So he muttered, "I just know."

"What?" she sneered. "You're a psychic like Kuato?"

Benny was watching him the rear-view mirror. "Naw, that ain't it. Cohaagen's been screwin' with his mind and has him all confused." He floored the cab and shot through the quickly narrowing space between two tunnelers. "So what's with the reactor in the Pyramid Mines?"

"You know as well as I do," growled Quaid. "The reactor makes air. That's why Cogaagen won't turn it on. It'll break his monopoly."

From out of a side tunnel, a multi-wheel van emerged and screeched into the tunnel after them. Shots rang out.

Melina spun around. "It's Richter!" she announced. "Damn, when did he get back from Earth?" She stuck her assault rifle out the window and started shooting back.

Benny started jigging the cab with evasive maneuvers.

Quaid aimed his pistol and added to the gunfire.

The cab scraped the side of the tunnel and caused a partial cave in. The multi-wheel bounced over the new pile of dirt, grazed the wall, veered over and grazed the other wall, but righted itself and kept going.

Benny tossed a sonic grenade from out of the front seat to Melina, who pulled the pin and dropped it out the window.

The explosion lifted up the front corner of the multi-wheel and tipped it over as Benny raced out of the tunnel and into Venusville. He was looking in the rear-view mirror. "That just made them mad," he said. "They're swarming out that thing and coming after us!" He screeched to a halt in front of The Last Resort. "Come on!"

They were all out of the cab now, heading for the bar. Quaid stopped Benny, again leveling his pistol at him. "I can't let you got in there."

Melina couldn't believe her ears. "Quaid!"

"If he gets inside, he's going to kill Kuato!"

Benny nearly bent over with bitter laughter. "Mr. Quaid," Benny sighed in exasperation. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kuato."

Bullets whipped by. More multi-wheels were pulling up. Heavily armed troops were pouring out. Richter was pointing at Quaid and the rest. The troops rushed forward.

Melina shouted, "Everybody inside! Now!"

They ran for it.


	9. Even Bad Dreams Can Come True

Chapter 9: Even Bad Dreams Can Come True

"George! Tony! Everybody! Get guns!" shouted Benny as he ran into the bar. "Assault teams! Headed this way!"

Women screamed. Weapons were dragged from hiding places.

The windows of the Last Resort began shattering as the assault teams' bullets began chewing up the front of the bar. A woman's head exploded. The man beside her whirled around and fell to the floor, his shoulder ripped open.

Benny crouched behind a thick wall, but he looked as if he'd been punched in the gut. "Oh my god," he gasped. "I can see it now. Richter's men will shoot their way in here and kill everyone, and if they can't, he'll pull them back, seal off this area, and suffocate everyone in Venusville. Checkmate!"

"No!" roared Quaid. "There's a back way out of here that leads to the mines. I can there and turn on the reactor! The reactor makes air!"

Benny looked up at him in realization. "Then go! Go!"

Quaid and Melina raced for the rear of the bar.

Benny rose and hurled a wave of fear through the door. 

Outside, fear washed over Richter's men, fear like they'd never felt before. They hesitated. They began seeking shelter. One even turned and ran.

"Ignore that!" shouted Richter. "It's just a psychic illusion! Kuato's in there! Go get him!" Richter pulled a soldier from his hiding place and pushed him forward. A rebel bullet through the eye put the man down.

Another wave of fear came from the bar. Richter's men were cringing now. He could hear whimpering. A few soldiers were shooting into the bar, but not many. None were advancing.

Richter himself felt far more hatred than fear. That psychic asshole! Kuato merely had to think, and Richter's four highly-trained assault teams were suddenly useless.

Bullets were coming from the bar now.

Richter's commlink beeped. Cohaagen was calling. "What's going on?"

"We've spotted Hauser with the slut he liked. We gave chase, and now they're trapped in that bar in Venusville. But get this! Kuato's inside too! He's sending out psychic waves of fear. My men can't get in there to get at them."

Cohaagen nodded. "Then you know what to do."

"Are you sure you want to - ?"

"Dammit! Pull back! Seal off the area! And turn off their goddamn air! Kill 'em all!"

"Yes sir." Richter turned and shouted to his troops. "Pull back to the tunnels! Pull back to the tunnels!"

His fear-drenched men didn't need to be told twice. They ran for it. Nearby a klaxon began to blare. In the distance, more klaxons took up the warning. The tunnel's massive breach door began to lower.

Richter hissed a sigh of defeat. This wasn't the way he wanted it. He wanted to get into that bar and to blow Kauto's freakish brain to pieces. He strode into the tunnel, and the heavy metal door crashed shut behind him.


	10. Dark Dreams

Chapter 10: Dark Dreams

As Quaid and Melina made their way through the network of tunnels behind the Last Resort, they heard the warning klaxons sound and one-by-one the breach doors slamming closed behind them. The dim light that had been filtering down the tunnel vanished.

Quaid heard Melina rummaging in her pouch. Then a tiny beam of artificial light flashed on.

"This way," said Quaid, but even with the small light, the passageway was still so dim he had to feel his way along. The walls were dry, crumbly dirt which smelled ancient. He bumped into one of those big tunnelers, and felt his way along its dusty, metallic megatreads, and then passed the carbonized crystal multiblades. He was back to the dirt wall now, and moved quickly for about 30 meters until the dirt wall made an unexpected 90-turn right in front of him. But it was no longer dirt here; it felt more like permacrete. "Melina, bring your light here!"

Her footsteps crunched up quickly behind him, and the weak light crawled over the permacrete wall. "Cohaagne's sealed off the mines," she declared.

"Get back," said Quaid. "I'm going to use the tunneler to dig through."

They both stumbled back through the darkness. Quaid found the tunneler without too much trouble. He fumbled around for the door latch, found it, clicked it open, and the cab light popped on. He climbed in and left the door open so he could find the ignition patch. Damn, its biometrics required an authorized thumbprint to start the engine.

Quaid searched out for a manual, which might tell him how to reset the biometrics, or an e-tool with which he could jumpstart the ignition, or something. What he found were several sticks of dynamite, good old fashion, 19-Century, Alfred-Noble-invented dynamite. And a very beat-up flamer.

He gathered up three of the sticks of dynamite and the flamer, and clambered down from the cab. "Melina, where are you?"

"Right beside you," she said, flicking her light back on.

"Give me the light, take the flamer and take shelter behind the tunneler." He herded her over to where he wanted her. "Give me a light with the flamer."

There was a snap, a pop, and then the flamer produced an inch-long tongue of flame. Melina held it up.

Quaid turned the beam of light on the wall so he could judge its distance, put the fuse of the dynamite into the open flame until it sparkled, hurled the stick at the wall, and shoved in beside Melina behind the tunneler.

BAR-RRROOOOMMMmmmm!

He shined the light back at the wall to check the damage. There was a lot of swirling dust but not too much damage. So Quaid repeated the process.

BAR-RRROOOOMMMmmmm!

He looked again. A little better, but still not enough. So he lit and third stick and threw it.

BAR-RRROOOOMMMmmmm!

With a clatter, a small section of the wall collapsed.

Quaid, holding the light, led Melina forward. When they got to the wall, Quaid could see that the hole was large enough for him to squirm through. He handed the light back to Melina and then clambered up the pile of rubble. He put his hands through the hole first, and then used his legs to push himself through.

The other side was pitch darkness, but Quaid new that there'd be solid ground just beyond the wall. And so he dropped. He landed on the tunnel floor and smelled the dust as it swirled up from his landing. "Melina, come on through."

She came through the opening, shining the light around. "Get out of the way. I can make it on my own."

She dropped down, landing softly as a cat.

Quaid took her hand, and with her dim light shining before them, they made their way out of the tunnel.

Alien technology, which may well have been older than mankind itself, sensed their movement and politely switched on thousands of ceiling lights.

An impossibly large cavern stretched out before them. Their tunnel ended at the beginning of a bridge that spanned a wide chasm. The chasm itself was a thousand meters deep. Beyond the bridge was the alien command complex.

Quaid and Melina hurried forward.


	11. Alien Dreams

Chapter 11: Alien Dreams

"Holy Hell!" swore Cohaagen when Lori came into his office. "What happened to your face?"

Lori knew she was badly bruised, but she had managed to stop most of the bleeding from her cuts. "I had Hauser. I goddamn had him! Then that Melina bitch showed up and machine gunned my entire assault team. I barely escaped with my life! Who knows where the hell they are now?"

Cohaagen grinned. "Richter has them both penned in the Last Resort along with Kuato himself. At least, that's what Richter says. So I told him to turn off their air."

"Oh crap! Do you have that on remote camera?"

"I was just bringing it in when you walked in." He turned back to his monitor and continued keying in commands.

The monitor began an alarm warble.

"Shit! Someone's in the cavern!" Cohaagen aborted his commands and keyed in a different set. The monitor flickered and brought up a long-shot of a man and woman crossing the long bridge. "That's Hauser and Melina! Damn Richter! Is there anything he can't screw up? Come on!"

He pressed the button which alerted his personal guard, and ran for the door.

It was cold on the bridge. As they hurried across, Quaid pointed downwards. "The entire core of Mars is ice," he told Melina. "The reactor melts the ice and releases the oxygen."

"Enough for people to breathe?"

"Enough for the whole planet!"

They crossed the bridge quickly, but Quaid hesitated when they got inside the electro-magnetic generation chamber. He pressed forward between the giant circular housings, but inwardly he quailed at the memory of the ambush which had taken place here in his dream. Now, the chamber was empty as a tomb. On the other side, the lift platform beckoned.

"Come on, Melina!"

Quaid charged across the opening with Melina close behind him. They leapt aboard the platform, and Quaid toggled the lever. The platform began to rise.

A sonic grenade landed with a clatter between them.

"Look out! Jump!"

They leapt back down to the permacrete, as the sonic blast crashed harmlessly above them. Melina pushed the button to return the platform to them.

A second grenade, which they hadn't seen, went off beside them, sweeping them aside like a massive, invisible hand.

Quaid raised his head to see guardsmen charging them and Cohaagen behind them shouting, "Alive! Take Hauser alive!"

As Quaid struggled to rise, one of the guardsmen seized his wrist and yanked him to his feet. This gave Quaid enough momentum to shove a forearm into the man's throat and knock him backwards. Then he backhanded another guardsman.

Melina was lying motionless on the floor. Quaid spotted her just as another guardsmen dove underneath him, flipping him in a somersault. He landed in a kneeling position, shouldered the thighs of the next guardsman, kicked another one in the shin, and leapt up to send a right jab into the next man's nose. The man fell back, gushing blood.

A powerful fist blindsided Quaid, knocking him sideways. Then he was spun around and punched in the gut. Quaid managed to straighten and backpedal away, blocking punches as he retreated.

"Melina! Wake up!"

He glimpsed the lift platform approaching ground level just behind the guardsmen. So he ran forward and drop kicked a pair of them in their chests. They both staggered backwards and fell underneath the platform. At the last second, they realized their peril and screamed as the platform came down on them, crushing bones and spewing out a small tsunami of crimson blood.

Quaid was flat on his back on the permacrete, and a guardsman took the opportunity to stomp on his chest. Quaid grabbed the man's ankle and twisted. As the man toppled, his ankle pulled Quaid back up to his feet.

Quaid ran at the guardsmen again and jumped. They ducked, and he hurdled over them to land on the platform, and he toggled the up switch. The platform again began to rise.

A guardsman leaped onto the platform, but Quaid clobbered him with a haymaker. The second man met the same fate.

More guardsmen were clambering up either side of the platform. Quaid ran to one end and stomped on fingers until they all disappeared. He turned to run to the other end, but two guardsmen had already gained their feet and were coming at him. A third guardsman was climbing up behind them.

Quaid blocked a right hook by one of them and counter punched him in the stomach. But his partner smashed a ringing blow into Quaid's ear. When Quaid retaliated by stomping the second man's foot, the first man head butted Quaid. The third man reached over and smashed Quaid's face. Quaid dropped to one knee, but luckily found a guardsman's knee right in front of his face, so he hooked it with his arm and jumped up, spinning the man over backwards. The off-balanced guardsman screamed as he rolled off the platform.

A muscular shoulder lunged into Quaid sending him staggering backwards. He stumbled and nearly fell off the platform too. One of the guardsmen stepped up and kicked him hard in the face. The blow knocked Quaid over the edge.

He grabbed the under-edge support and then spotted a support rod which ran the width of the platform. He reached for it and, as fast as he could, Quaid began hand-over-handing it along the bar over to the other end. He swung his feet backwards and then forwards, swinging himself back up onto the platform.

The two remaining guardsmen were looking over the other end. "Where the hell is he? Do you see him?"

Before they spotted him, Quaid charged them and dropped kicked them both in the butt. They screamed all the way down.

Quaid clambered back up to his feet and looked over the edge of the platform down at the fallen guardsmen.

Cohaagen was bending over one of the splattered bodies. Behind him, Melina got to her feet and aimed her assault rifle. She must have said something because suddenly he whipped around to face her. She machinegunned him.

_Good_, thought Quaid. He looked up to see he was nearing the top. Cohaagen was dead; his men were dead or scattered, and now absolutely nothing stood between Quaid and the controls to start the reactor. The people of Mars were about to get their first lungfuls of free air.


	12. Yesterday's Dreams

Chapter 12: Yesterday's Dreams

The platform rose to control-room level, the electro-engine clicked off, and the stabilization bars slammed into place.

"Hello, sweetheart."

Quaid spun around to find Lori standing about 15 meters away with an assault rifle aimed at his belly.

"People are dying," he told her and pointed to the control pedestal. "We have to turn on the reactor so that they can have air." He stepped off the platform.

"Fuck them," she sneered, "and FUCK YOU! Dammit Doug, we had a good thing back on Earth. A damn good thing! We had a nice apartment and healthy incomes. We were planning to have kids, remember!"

"You said you didn't want to."

"I said I had to think about it! Shit, I'm really married to that loser Richter. Even so, I was ready to give him up, to give everything up for you. Then you had to come running back to Mars, which means now I going to have to fucking kill you, and I'm going to end up stuck on this goddamn planet married to that asshole Richter. I should kill you for that alone!"

"Kill me if you want," said Quaid, stepping toward the control pedestal, "but let me save all those people first."

She fired a short burst which just missed him. He froze.

"I don't give a damn about them!"

He inched towards her and said in a gentle voice, "Hey, that's not the Lori that I know and love."

"You never loved me. You love her. You love Melina."

"Don't be ridiculous. She can't hold a candle to you," he lied. He kept creeping forward.

"You dreamed of her every night, every goddamn night! You'd fuck me and then dream of her. Damn you."

Suddenly, Quaid slapped the muzzle of her gun away. He saw her beautiful eyes blaze with blue fury, but she wasn't foolish enough to try and swing the muzzle of the gun back. Instead she kept spinning in the direction of his blow and used her calf to sweep his legs out from underneath him. Only then did the gun come back.

Quaid hooked one foot behind her heel and used the other to shove her kneecap away. She fell over backwards, the assault rifle flying out of her hand. He scrambled afterward her, crawling over her to get to her throat. She kneed him in the balls.

The agony sent him rolling away and gasping.

She was on her feet, looking for the gun. She spotted it and dove. He grabbed her flying ankle, and she crashed to the floor. Quaid dragged her backwards and again started crawling over her to get up to her neck. She elbowed him in the throat.

When he shuttered in pain, she managed to twist around underneath him to get on her back. She smashed the heel of her hand into his nose, and then used her legs to flip him over her head.

Quaid spotted the gun and scrambled for it. Lori ran passed and stomped on his wrist. She scooped up the gun.

He grabbed her ankles and pulled hard. She fell on her butt. Quaid heard the bolt of the assault rifle being pulled back, and so he tightened his grip on her ankles and stood up, dangling her like a prize marlin. He began to spin, whirling her around, keeping the centrifugal forces on her maximized. Nevertheless, the black Cyclops eye of the gun muzzle sought him out.

There was a burst of automatic fire.

The gun was ripped from Lori's hand and her shoulder bloomed into bright crimson patches. The blood began to spread.

Quaid glanced over at the platform which was rising back up to control-level height. Melina stood magnificently on it, holding her smoking assault rifle. "Hauser, where would you be without me?"

He shrugged.

They went towards each other. A sonic grenade dropped neatly between them. He shouted, and they jumped in opposite directions a mere second before the grenade thundered.

Quaid landed on his belly only to find he was looking at yet another sonic grenade. He scooped it up and hurled it back a Lori. But the grenade sailed passed her and bounced down into one of the cavern's many alcoves.

A roar of the sonic explosion was drowned out by what sounded like the shriek of a hundred newly castrated banshees. Air yowled out of the cavern and screamed through a breach in the cavern wall.

Lori was sucked up as if she weighed nothing more than a piece of paper and was carried by the artificial hurricane down into the alcove, out through the breached wall, and into the nearly airlessness of Mars.

Quaid had grabbed onto the side of the pedestal.

Melina had a cabinet but lost her grip and slid across the floor until she could grab a railing.

All the demons of hell howled around them.

"Melina! Hold on!"

Dangling from the pedestal, he walked his hands up to the control panel. In the domed top was an imprint designed for a three-fingered alien hand. He gripped the pedestal with his left hand and, using all his strength, he reached up and slapped his hand into the three-fingered indentation.

Loud thumps and clicked echoed even above the shriek of the air. Quaid brought his hand back down to grab the pedestal again. Craning his neck, he could see the matrixes of tribinium cores on the ceiling of the cavern were beginning to glow with a yellow-white iridescence, and the matrixes were beginning to lower towards the ice floor.

A shriek snapped his attention back to Melina. She had lost her grip and, like Lori, was being sucked outside.

"Melina!"

In a heartbeat, she was gone.

The white-hot tribinium cores contacted the ancient ice, which squealed, hissed, popped, cracked, exploded and steamed. Great roaring streams of vapor blasted through the cavern. They were dozens of times stronger than the wind which had carried away Lori and Melina.

Quaid was plucked off the pedestal and was flung outside.


	13. Tomorrow's Dreams

Chapter 13: Tomorrow's Dreams

Quaid had forgotten how cold Mars could be. But the shock of the artic temperatures was instantly overwhelmed by the realization that he couldn't breathe. The planet's ultra-low air pressure had immediately sucked all the air out of his lungs. His throat squealed and rasped as he tried to inhale air that didn't exist.

He was swelling up. Everywhere. His face, his hands; he could even feel his neck swelling. His eyes were being slowly extruded out of their sockets. His skin felt as if it were about to explode. Blood was in his mouth and was dribbling from his nose and ears. Quaid writhed in agony.

A cloud of swirling steam rolled over him. That helped some. It gave a breath of warmth, and his eyes stopped their outward migration.

Quaid struggled up onto one elbow. His deformed eyeballs could make out Melina not too far away, writhing and struggling. Beyond her was another human form which must have been Lori. It was splattered and soaked with blood and lay quite still.

Another swirl of steam brought him even more relief. Quaid prayed that this wasn't just wishful thinking, but it felt as if his eyes were slipping back into his head. He split blood away. The swelling was going down; he was sure of it.

He craned his head around and saw more swirling clouds of stream rolling down the slope of Pyramid Mountain towards them. The steam swept over him, and he found he could breathe again. But trying made him cough up blood, which he spat out.

The top of the mountain had been ripped off, and a massive column of steam was roaring skywards and then spreading out. It looked up there like an ever-growing nimbus cloud – a nimbus cloud here on cloudless Mars! Lighting flashed within the dark cloud. It must have been thundering too, but the shriek of the winds drowned out all out sounds.

Quaid tried to stand but could only push himself up into a sitting position. He wiped away the blood from his ears, nose and mouth. He blinked his eyes, surprised at how dry and rough they felt. He inhaled. It felt wondrous to breathe again!

Melina was now up on one elbow. Lori hadn't moved.

Another swirling cloud of steam brought more relief. As more and more steam belched out of the mountain, the air began to quiet. The howl of the winds became more of a whistle.

Quaid tried again to stand up and made it this time. He swayed unsteadily. He wiped the last of the blood from his face and, like a drunk coming home from an all-night bender, stumbled and staggered over to Melina. He extended a hand, she placed her tiny hand in his large one, and he pulled her up.

She tried to talk, at first with no success. Then she managed to croak out, "Hauser, don't anyone ever tell you that you don't know how to show a girl a good time." She gave him a bloody smile.

He acknowledged her joke with a feeble nod and then made his way over to Lori.

She had been the first person ejected from the mines, back when there was almost no atmosphere out here. Whatever Quaid had experienced when he was ejected, Lori had had it ten times worse. She had eventually burst open like an overripe melon. Her ruptured organs were scattered all over the landscape.

Melina's voice asked, "Did you know her?"

Quaid nodded.

"Are you sorry she's dead?"

Quaid turned and looked into Melina's dark eyes, eyes which sometimes could be hard as flint but were now soft and gentle as a doe's. "I'm sorry that she had to be killed. Towards the end, she was like a mad dog."

They held hands then, like a couple of school kids. They strolled up onto a promontory and gazed down on the shattered dome which, until a few moments ago, had kept the people of Mars safe from the planet's killer environment.

People were gazing out in wonder at the blue sky and also at the rain clouds that were gathering. It hadn't rained on Mars for a million years.

The mutants from Venusville were walking over the shards of glass, coming out onto a rocky shelf, looking up in wonder at Quaid and Melina as they stood erect without spacesuits on the red soil of Mars.

Quaid nodded. "They have a future now."

"What about us?" asked Melina. "Do we have a future?"

He recalled some of Lori's last words: "You never loved me. You love her. You love Melina."

Quaid gathered Melina into his arms and kissed her, kissed her with such hot passion that it could have melted the ice way out on Pluto.

_Sometimes,_ he thought, _sometimes dreams really do come true._

The End


End file.
